7/01/2009 @ 6:00PM

I Don't Like You

Charlie sat at the bar, my bar, Cathy’s Lantern Inn. He had been drunk when I started my shift and had only gotten drunker. It was a late night at the ‘Lantern and the place had mostly emptied out. Now it was just Charlie, one randy single mother, Ralph our hobbled maintenance guy and me.

Soon Charlie became antagonistic. “When’s the last time you got your ass kicked?” he slurred. I didn’t quite remember, but I knew the next time could be right now. “Did your mommy buy you those glasses?” he taunted. No, she hadn’t. Not directly.

As the song says, I looked just like Buddy Holly with black, thick-framed glasses and a sweater vest over a white T-shirt, a look I used to think flattered me. Charlie came from another world. He was large, wiry, with blackened hands from roofing. His red hair and mustache were wild, and he had an unhinged gleam in his eye. I had been warned he was erratic but had never experienced it before.

I was scared, but I couldn’t let him see. I had to get out of this. I could call the cops, but they would get here too late. I imagined this is how a lion tamer must feel: You have to be confident, and barring that you have to look confident. It might have been a facade, but it’s all I had.

“Look, Charlie,” I said, trying to keep my cool, “that’s it, you’re out of here. Or I’m calling the cops.”

He looked stunned, like those tranquilized bears on nature shows. I braced to have my offending eye-ware smashed in by his roofer’s first, but instead he slowly limped off. Soon his truck peeled out of our parking lot, and he became someone else’s problem. Another drunk driver, it’s true, but what could I do? This wasn’t some foo-foo bar, this was a real, honest-to-god locals-only, blue-collar workingman’s bar. It had been this way for decades.

I was a New Jersey Jew with a liberal art’s degree from Wesleyan University. What was I doing here?

It’s not really a long story. I was a struggling writer in Boulder, Colo. To make ends meet I thought I would become a bartender. I imagined it paid well and would be a kick. To make this dream a reality I took a $300 course at the Colorado Bartending Academy. I learned how to make about 50 drinks, including those that require a tiny umbrella, and got my diploma and some job leads. I thought I was good to go.

Cathy, the bar’s owner, hired me after a 10-minute interview. The interview consisted of two questions. One was whether I had just paid to be a bartender? I said yes. The other was whether I did drugs? I said no.

I later learned the interview was so specific because the man I replaced had been dealing drugs from the bar. In fact, some of his former customers would come in, use the pay phone and take off.

Although I learned how to make a bunch of obscure drinks–like Godfathers, Zombies and Old Fashioneds–I didn’t yet know how to pour an actual beer. I learned the hard way my first night, from my first customer. My beer looked perfect, with a nice foamy head. The patron was outraged, and I didn’t know why.

Cathy laughed and stepped in. “Hold on, I’ll bet he’s never poured a beer before,” she said. Then she put the mug back under the tap, until the liquid poured over the sides, and the foam became but a thin strip.

In truth, “mixology” was the smallest part of my job. I only made a few drinks, and most of these I learned in high school: screwdrivers, gin and tonics, shots. Instead it was mostly about fitting in: killing the hours with conversation, playing pool, feeding the jukebox, buying drinks for good customers and shutting others down when they got rowdy.

Without knowing it I also soon created a character to fit in, one far more folksy, no-nonsense and flinty than I normally am. Even so, these were mostly country folks, and I couldn’t always relate to them. Some sniffed me out as a phony and resented me for it.

The troubles with Charlie, for example, started before I booted him. One night he and a friend were at the bar, talking about how they were going to start hauling reefer.

I almost spit out my Red Wolf. “What?”

They shook their heads. No, not that kind of reefer, they explained. Refrigerated trucks. Duh. Later that night Charlie showed me his new four by four, beaming with pride. I didn’t know how to react. Great, a truck. He noticed.

Other patrons would talk about elk hunting. Nope, never did that either. One poor soul confided in me that as a child he was so impoverished his mother boiled dandelions for food. I imagined this as some kind of exotic treat.

“How did they taste?”

He looked shocked.

“They were the worst thing I ever ate in my life,” he said.

Over time, I learned that either you fit in at Cathy’s or … you were me. Though some regulars actually liked me anyway. We’d even talk about things besides sports, for example. But still others, like Charlie, grew hostile over time.

After I booted Charlie he came back the next day, groveling for another chance. I consented because I was 25-years-old and didn’t quite understand how alcoholics worked yet. I learned fast.

I went over to shake hands and let bygones be bygones, but Charlie stared straight ahead, huddled over his beer.

“I don’t like you,” he said. “You keep trying to be my friend, but I don’t like you. Now you just leave me alone to drink my beer.” There he was, nasty as ever, soon to get nastier still.

Having gotten served, even as I served, I wandered off to another tiny corner of the counter top. A flash: This wasn’t my bar, never would be. Someone ordered a drink and I fetched it, spying on Charlie, a lion tamer.